Explore The Turquoise Coast
Tourism has utterly transformed KAŞ. What was a sleepy fishing village before the mid-1980s is today a holiday metropolis, whose permanent population of about 7000 is well outnumbered by the vacationers on whom locals depend for a living. Attitudes have inevitably hardened – the otogar is well patrolled by accommodation touts – though residential tourism is not as big as at Dalyan or Kalkan. Kaş remains more youth-oriented and more cosmopolitan; aspiring İstanbul or Ankara yuppies flock here, and it’s still a fixture on the foreign backpackers’ trail. The village, until 1923 a Greek-populated shipping port, has always had an appealing setting, nestling in a curving bay – kaş means “eyebrow” or “something curved” – with a backdrop of vertical, 500-metre-high cliffs peppered with rock tombs, and startling, head-on views of Kastellórizo (Meis).
A major halting point on “Blue Cruise” itineraries, yacht and gulet culture is as important here as at Kalkan – with day-trips available for the less well-heeled. Set for completion in 2010, a new yacht marina is being built at Bucak Limanı (formerly Vathy), the long fjord west of town, wedged between Highway 400 and the Çukurbağ peninsula, which extends 5km southwest of Kaş. A two-level road system (upper lane westbound, sea level eastbound) is being graded above it, with a new, as yet unfinalized traffic plan to enter town.
Beaches are hardly stellar, which together with the lack of a really convenient airport has spared the town the full impact of modern tourism. However, it gets lively at night, since shops stay open until 1am in season – and the various bars much later. Kaş makes a handy base from which to reach Kekova and nearby Patara, and various types of adventure activities are practised in the environs. The modern town is built atop ancient Antiphellos, whose remaining ruins speckle the streets and cover the base of the Çukurbağ peninsula.
When sea-level pleasures at Kaş pall, especially in broiling weather, there’s escape in the cool heights of the Akdağ range, which soars to over 3000m in the space of 20km. The standard start-point for excursions into the mountains, reachable by minibus, is Gömbe, a small town 60km north of Kaş on the road to Elmalı. This provides access to Yeşil Göl, Lycia’s only alpine lake, and also serves as a staging point for anyone intending to climb Akdağ summit itself, three hours above Yeşil Göl.
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Gömbe
Gömbe
The ninety-minute ride up from Kaş is graced by extensive pine forests, yielding to apple orchards as you approach GÖMBE. Few commercial maps show the huge Çayboğazı reservoir which has re-routed any approach from the south – drivers can avoid the circuitous bypass road by going right over the dam-top road. Gömbe is famous for a June festival of the local Tahtacıs, and a farmers’ fair the latter half of August.
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Yesil Göl and Akdag
Yesil Göl and Akdag
Most people come to Gömbe to visit Yeşil Göl (Green Lake), a short distance west and the only permanent body of water on generally arid, karstic Akdağ. Tucked into the mountain’s east flank at about 1850m elevation, Yeşil Göl is a large, clean and fairly deep tarn at its best between April and June; the earlier in spring you show up, the finer the wildflower displays. The southern lakeshore has enough (slightly sloping) turf for a handful of tents, should you wish to camp.
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Canyoning above Kas
Canyoning above Kas
Most canyoning outings here focus on one of two stream canyons: Hacıoğlan Çayı or Kıbrıs Çayı. The former traverse, starting near Hacıoğlan village east of Bezirgan, makes a good beginners’ spring expedition of 6hr, finishing at Dereköy, with plenty of easy slides and long swims as well as one 20-ft abseil about two-thirds of the way along. In summer the action shifts to the latter canyon, which retains water all year (too much, in fact, during spring), and while shorter takes the same time to emerge at Beldibi, with two abseils and two zip-wire transits. The Kaputaş gorge is another potential venue, though there is rarely enough water in it.
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Scuba-diving around Kas
Scuba-diving around Kas
The Mediterranean around Kaş has arguably the best visibility (up to 30m) and greatest variety of sea life along the entire Turkish coast. Fish you’re likely to see – especially in spring or late summer – include grouper, barracuda, amberjack, garfish and ray; smaller common species include cardinal fish, damselfish, parrotfish, flying fish, ornate wrasse, breams and pandora.
There are nearly sixty dive sites in the area, many along the Çukurbağ peninsula, with most others around the islets at the marine frontier with Kastellórizo. Beginners visit a tunnel at 15m and a shoreline cave fed by an icy freshwater spring in Bayındır Limanı, or “Stone Edge” or Güvercin Adası off the Çukurbağ peninsula. Moderately experienced divers are taken to “Canyon”, where they drop through the namesake formation past a reasonably intact Greek cotton-carrying freighter that ran aground here in the 1960s. This was later dynamited to remove the navigational hazard, with its stern in 35m of water. Next there’s a traverse of a big-wall dropoff, and then a return north with prevailing currents via a tunnel system. Only advanced divers can visit a wrecked World War II bomber shot down between Kaş and Kastellórizo, resting nearly intact in 65m of water at “Flying Fish”, just beyond “Canyon”.
